


A New Kind of Yesterday

by So_Ill_Continue



Series: Shiro, Alive [5]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (more or less), Aftermath of Violence, Captivity, Friendship, Gen, Gen Work, Gen or Pre-Slash, Hopeful Ending, Platonic Relationships, Pre-Canon, Sad with a Happy Ending, Shiro (Voltron)'s Missing Year, Shiro (Voltron)-centric, Starvation, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:13:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27902800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/So_Ill_Continue/pseuds/So_Ill_Continue
Summary: Shiro is healed. He and Matt have a talk."Matt releases his left foot, placing it gently to the floor before collecting his right to repeat the process. After the moment of quiet, he adds, voice bitter, “So you lied. And then you lost the bet, or deal, or whatever, and I was treated to the sight of this Sendak fucker squishing you like a bug.”Shiro flinches, embarrassment and resentment and self-loathing rising in his throat like bile. He remembers Sendak crushing the toe of his boot against his forehead, dirt crumbling into his eyes. He remembers feeling something hot and wet under his thighs and identifies it now as urine."
Relationships: Matt Holt & Shiro, Sendak & Shiro (Voltron)
Series: Shiro, Alive [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1809898
Comments: 16
Kudos: 10





	A New Kind of Yesterday

**Author's Note:**

> Without context, this work will not make sense. For this reason, **please read _Like a Grasping Soul,_ _Thunder in a Restless Mind,_ and _Drink the World_ prior to starting this story.** For full enjoyment, I suggest also reading _Careful with that Light,_ but it is not strictly necessary. All of these stories are part of my _Shrio, Alive_ series.

Shiro is healed three days later. He doesn’t remember much from before that. There’s Sendak, huge and angry and terrifying as he looms over him. There’s pain, white-hot and all-consuming, as his ankles are shattered. There’s Matt’s worried face, sometimes crying, sometimes rambling, always leaning over him as he lays on the floor. There’s Matt’s hand, carding through his greasy hair and Matt’s thighs, bony under his aching head. There’s food and water and mostly blissful unconsciousness.

There’s the cell and then… then he’s falling out of the strange, cold tube shivering and weak and with scars on both ankles where the bones had pierced through. The walk back to his cell is difficult, and the shackles and muzzle don’t help either. He’s unbalanced and dizzy and his knees jitter beneath him like those of an old man.

Shiro feels like an old man.

Relieved of his bindings, Shiro stumbles into the cell and falls to his knees. There’s no breakdown this time, however. He’s not overwhelmed like that, not being torn apart by contradicting feelings of muted elation and strangling terror. The exhaustion is comparable, though, which he assumes is from a combination of the broken, pain-riddled sleep of the three days he’d spent unhealed and whatever stress his body undergoes when it’s forced to patch itself up so quickly.

Matt does a couple of interesting things when he sees him. There’s a very endearing, somewhat punishing hug right off the bat, which is quickly followed by several choice words and a rough inspection of every injury Shiro had once sported.

“Are you mad?” Shiro asks. He’s sitting directly on the floor now, the mobility of his left ankle methodically tested in Matt’s boney grip. He watches the small circles his toes are making so that he doesn’t have to see his friend’s face. Both feet are bare, his boots having been discarded to one of the cell’s corners.

Matt’s fingers tense around his captured limb and he shifts like he’s struggling to contain something uncomfortable within him. “I’m a lot of things right now, Shiro,” he finally answers, not looking up from his steady testing. The motion reverses, moving counter-clockwise. It doesn’t hurt.

Shiro purses his lips, feeling…some kind of way. Guilt is part of it. So is suborn remorselessness and a tired sort of anger that straddles frustration and irritation. All of it is swathed in numbing resignation, and it’s that last bit that makes Shiro look at the emotional tangle and think, _why bother?_

“I shouldn’t’ve lied to you,” Shiro states, because it sounds like the right thing to say, even though he’s not sure if the guilt is actually from lying. It might be due to the opportunity he’d squandered when he’d screwed up that last fight. It might just be a general, free-floating feeling directed at their situation, or because he knows Matt had been hurt too, if less directly. Maybe there isn’t any reason at all.

But regardless, Shiro can remember a previous version of himself that would’ve probably agreed with the statement, at least in principle. In his past life, he had lied about trivial things, about personal things, about things that either didn’t matter or mattered supremely and particularly to him. With their world narrowed down until only the two of them remain, Shiro’s deal with Sendak falls into neither of those categories.

“I shouldn’t have believed you,” is what Matt returns. His voice is tired and resigned, with knots of other, more complicated emotions straining beneath the surface. His fingers never still on Shiro’s ankle, and although Shiro doubts the need for the assessment to continue this long, he doesn’t comment or pull away.

Matt sighs, heavy enough to draw Shiro’s eyes to his face. “Everything is shitty. I don’t even know if I’m mad at you or just mad at all of it.” He taps his fingers idly on the top of Shiro’s foot as he forgoes the circles in favor of bending it back toward his shin. “I’m definitely mad at that Galran.”

Matt doesn’t have to specify, but Shiro still finds himself supplying, “Sendak.” The name conjures dark eyes and sharp teeth and a fury so brutal that it burns into Shiro’s bones and makes terrified sweat slick his skin. His ankles twinge in remembered pain.

Matt finally glances up to meet his gaze, taking careful note of what he finds there before looking down once more. “Yeah,” he replies. “Jackass.”

Shiro doesn’t know if the insult is for him or Sendak. Knowing Matt, it could be both.

He doesn’t apologize again. Instead, Shiro admits, voice quiet under the weight of his shame: “He gave me food.”

Matt’s eyes close for a quick moment and he nods. “Yeah,” he acknowledges, not quite able to hide the wistful edge in his voice. Nevertheless, understanding dominates; starvation is no stranger to either of them. “I know. But games like that are risky, Shiro, and the Galra don’t play fair.”

Shiro hums, too exhausted to manage a snort. Matt doesn’t usually waste his breath on such stupidly obvious things, and Shiro has the deeply uncharitable thought that the abuse and malnutrition have finally taken their toll on his wit. It isn’t a nice deduction, and it isn’t all that fair either. After all, Shiro has done enough to warrant a reminder.

“I thought it’d be worth it,” Shiro explains, shifting a little to lean back on his hands. Matt guides his foot into a point, and the stretch is still entirely painless. “I’m a good fighter, and food like that could give me an edge.”

He doesn’t specify further. With any luck, Matt will assume he means the advantage of calories, of less severe malnutrition. With any luck, Matt won’t know how the meal had also given him something tangible to enjoy, something real and immediate to make this life just a bit more worth living.

How the lofty, far-off goal of survival dwindles next to the possibility of more seasoned meat between his teeth.

Matt releases his left foot, placing it gently to the floor before collecting his right to repeat the process. After the moment of quiet, he adds, voice bitter, “So you lied. And then you lost the bet, or deal, or whatever, and I was treated to the sight of this Sendak fucker squishing you like a bug.”

Shiro flinches, embarrassment and resentment and self-loathing rising in his throat like bile. He remembers Sendak crushing the toe of his boot against his forehead, dirt crumbling into his eyes. He remembers feeling something hot and wet under his thighs and identifies it now as urine.

Matt flinches too, pausing the newest round of circles. “Sorry,” he offers, wincing, hands clenching and relaxing in their grips. It’s nothing more than a nervous release of energy, but Shiro thinks it feels almost like an accidental massage. Painless as this examination may be, his joints are always a little stiff after time in the healing tube. “I didn’t mean that. Just – I thought you were gonna die in that fight, and then you didn’t, and I thought he was going to kill you anyway. For three days, that’s what I thought.”

The circles resume, moving in the opposite direction, against the clock.

Shiro nods. He’s too tired for the insult to ignite beyond a flicker of irritation, and he thinks he probably deserves Matt’s sharp words anyway.

“Did they hurt you, much?” he asks, remembering Matt’s cut-off cry as the guard had rammed the butt of his blaster into his head. The Galra are strong; even after all this time, Shiro can still see the bruise peeking out from under his overgrown bangs, deep purple ringed in yellow.

Matt shrugs, although his shoulders are too tense for the casual action. “My head, and they roughed me up a bit on the way out.” He pulls Shiro’s toes back. “Once you stopped responding.”

A new stab of guilt breaks through the numbness, and Shiro has no trouble discerning its cause. “I’m sorry,” he repeats, although this time the sincerity is clear.

Matt sighs again, hanging his head and dropping Shiro’s foot, despite having yet to stretch it forward. It’s pretty obvious that neither ankle is anything but fully restored.

Matt swipes a hand through his hair before looking up and meeting Shiro’s gaze. “Listen, Shiro,” he begins, collected in a way that smacks of his father. “Don’t be stupid about this, alright? We’re _starving_.” He stabs a finger toward the little barred window in the door. “They know it-” the finger returns to flick between the two humans “-and we know it, and that’s why they knew if they offered you food in exchange for-” he stalls, his hands flapping aimlessly; he’s probably a still little foggy on the details of Shiro’s arrangement “- _whatever_ , you’d do it.”

Food in exchange for a maiming. And Shiro had jumped on the chance.

But Matt isn’t done.

He straightens, chin raising haughtily. “That’s not to say agreeing to the thing wasn’t dumb as fuck, because yeah, it was dumb as fuck. Dumber than fuck, even.” He relaxes again, losing some of his focused intensity in the process, and begins to pick at the purple over-shirt worn by all the prisoners. “But biologically speaking, it’s also the predictable outcome. So don’t, you know, dig yourself too deep over it.”

Shiro allows himself to mull that over. He knows he has a tendency to blame himself when things go sideways. He’s been told that it’s an unhealthy habit, and he could almost agree if it didn’t make so much sense. Fact is, in virtually every situation, there is something he could have done to mitigate a negative outcome. Maybe he can’t prevent it entirely, maybe his actions would only prompt the slightest nudge toward the positive end of the scale, but that’s still a difference worth recognizing. Plus, it’s not as if the perspective isn’t practical; the weight of responsibility may be heavy, but accepting that he did something wrong this time means that he has the chance to do it right in the future. Removing that weight means forfeiting control.

Given the paltry level of control Shiro maintains over his life these days, he isn’t keen on losing any more.

More to the point, it was he who had made the decision to accept Sendak’s offer. Shiro could have said no, or at the least could have made some form of objection if outright refusal was too dangerous. The meal hadn’t even been worth it in the end, given the pain he and Matt had been subjected to as a result.

Shiro is lost enough in his own thoughts that he only regains awareness when Matt flicks him between the eyes. It doesn’t hurt so much as startle him, and Shiro’s attention is reflexively refocused. “Stop that,” Matt chides, scowling in a way that looks more like a pout. “You wanna feel crappy about something? Let it be keeping me in the dark like a jackass. Sendak and his cronies didn’t have to do anything to us, but they did, and that’s on them.”

It’s Shiro’s turn to sigh, and he does, allowing himself one deep, slow breath.

He can’t agree with Matt, not fully. Going into this conversation, he’d still felt justified in his actions, a mix of dismissing the clarity of hindsight and mulishly clinging to the one meager gain. Matt had managed to coax him back to reality on both points, but now that Shiro realizes his actions were wrong, abdicating his responsibility is unlikely. He’d made the deal and Matt had gotten hurt as a result, no matter what had occurred between those two points.

But insisting on the veracity of his guilt won’t please Matt, who probably would view it as a pointless spiral of self-flagellation rather than a healthy awareness of his own mistakes and their consequences. So instead Shiro offers, voice hard: “He caught me off guard. I won’t let it happen again, not if I have the choice.”

Despite everything, that seems to cheer Matt a bit, in some backward, unintended way. His friend smiles, eyes sharp with amusement, and flops down to sprawl on his back. His spread-eagled position covers more than half of the space, and his head narrowly misses the - thankfully empty - waste bucket in the corner.

“Oh Takashi, you’re a treasure,” he chirps, grinning at the ceiling.

Shiro feels his eyebrows rise, although honestly, Matt’s moods have always been like that: prone to sudden, startling reversals that leave the more emotionally stable among them blinking in their wake. If anything, captivity has only made the breakneck turns more erratic. Shame on Shiro for still getting caught by surprise, he supposes.

“Oh yeah?” Shiro muses, lips twitching as he arranges himself beside his friend. There isn’t enough room to stretch out like Matt, so Shiro settles for folding his hands under his head and pointing his toes before relaxes his muscles again.

Matt reaches out one hand, dragging his grimy fingers over Shiro’s shoulders and face in a blind search. He eventually finds his goal – the top of Shiro’s head – and gives it a gleefully patronizing pat.

“Yeah,” he confirms easily, warm hand still resting on Shiro’s forehead like it belongs there. “You are.”

**Author's Note:**

> I had a head time writing this, for a lot of reasons. First, it was that I didn't want it to just feel like a filler so that I could get to the other stories, even though there needed to be a resolution after the events of _Thunder in a Restless Mind._ Then my motivation tanked. Honestly, I think I'm falling out of love for Voltron, which is a bummer, because I used to be so effortlessly excited by it. I want to continue this series, and so I'm doing my best to bolster myself so that I can. If you want to help, please leave a comment. Feedback is always greatly appreciated.


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